


Anniversary

by pengukat



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Future, Gen, They're not together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 00:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pengukat/pseuds/pengukat
Summary: A meeting, in the future, where not much happens. Post KE 2x08.





	Anniversary

Eve parks the car next to the wooden gate and gets out. She looks out at the rolling green fields stretched out below her.

"This is where I dropped Frank," Eve muses. "Ah, the memories."

Behind her, a disinterested Villanelle eventually decides to join her and reluctantly climbs out of the passenger seat. She's still sucking on the lollipop Eve gave her to get her to stop fiddling with the radio stations. It's the third lollipop Eve has had to bribe her with - the first one was to convince Villanelle to get in the car with her, the second was to get her to shut her mouth and sit in silence on the way here.

“I don’t get it.” The lollipop clacks against Villanelle's teeth. “You said you had somewhere special to bring me.” 

“Yes, well - here we are.” Eve waves a hand. 

“What’s so special about wet grass and cow turds?” 

“I still remember it like it was yesterday." Eve pretends to reminisce. "I was standing right here, watching Frank run towards me. You were right back there," Eve points, "shooting at him and missing."

"My arm was busted," Villanelle says distantly. “But why are we here again?”

“Well, you told me you were coming - to England, I mean - and it happened to be the anniversary of when we first met, so, I thought we’d just - come back to where we first met.” Eve is a tad miffed. "I honestly thought you'd remember."

"Here?” Now Villanelle sounds surprised. “This is not where we first met."

“Uh, yeah it was.” Eve says it as though it is the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Uh, no it wasn’t,” Villanelle mimics. 

"Yes it was! You tried to shoot me," Eve insists. "I don't think I would forget something like that."

"You asked me if I was okay." Now Villanelle sounds a little sullen. "I told you to wear it down."

"Oh, that." Eve remembers the honey-blonde nurse in the blue outfit. "That doesn't count."

"What do you mean it doesn't count?!" The end of Villanelle’s question rises sharply in tone. 

“Um - well, I guess I didn’t know it was you at the time?” 

"Is that not usually how it works the first time people meet each other? People who do not know each other, meeting each other for the first time? That is the meaning of ‘meeting for the first time” is it not?"

"Well, yeah, but here was the first time I met you as Villanelle, so -"

"Wow. You can be SO insensitive.” 

But the look on Villanelle’s face is so placid that Eve can’t tell if there is real emotion behind the sentence or not. 

"This place just has significance for me, that's all," Eve says finally. 

"Well, it has none whatsoever for me," Villanelle declares grandly. "Can we go now?"

“I want to stay a bit longer,” Eve grumbles. 

“BUT THIS IS _SO - BORING_ -” 

"I brought cake,” Eve remembers hastily, and she goes to the boot of the car. She re-emerges emerges with a paper box, paper plates, and plastic forks. 

Villanelle's eyes light up when she opens the box. She tosses her lollipop over her shoulder and eagerly tears into a slice.

"There was this bakery near my place that was doing limited speciality orders, and they had this Russian cake that was - well, I guess you like it," Eve says when she sees Villanelle isn't listening. 

Eve looks around at the English countryside again. 

Over there was where Villanelle the assassin first emerged in the distance, a speck of dark in the vivid green, loping towards her, a hunter after its prey.

Somewhere over there was where she stopped the car and got out and looked back.

Right over there the spot she stood and held a hand over her heart. 

Eve glances at the other woman, engrossed in cake, and wonders what to say to her. 

It’s been some years - exactly how many, Eve has lost count - since she has last seen Villanelle in person. 

She doesn't ask if Villanelle has received all of the hidden messages Eve has tried to leave for her, scattered across the globe. She doesn't ask why Villanelle keeps mailing her unmarked gift packages (that are obviously from Villanelle thanks to the signature handwritten notes), or how Villanelle manages to always find out where Eve has moved even though Eve has not ever shared her address. 

She doesn't ask why Villanelle sent her a handwritten postcard last month to let Eve know Villanelle would be in the country "for work." She doesn't ask what the work is, and if it's done, or who it is for, or if it is even what Eve thinks it is. She doesn't ask why Villanelle agreed to meet with her.

She doesn't talk about all the scars that have happened in all their encounters in all the years between them.

She doesn't talk about what they are to each other, and what their relationship is, and how long it might continue into the future. 

Today is not for that.

"Happy anniversary," Eve says to Villanelle. 

Villanelle glances over, her fork stilling, and rolls her eyes. 

"Hey," Eve says, and on an impulse she reaches out and cups the other woman's cheek. 

Villanelle stares back.

Eve is struck by the reminder that even when two people are living through the exact same event, sharing the same time and space, they can still come away from it with a vastly different experience of it; that no two people ever live and perceive the world in the exact same way, and so existence, no matter who you have to share it with, is at heart ultimately a solitary experience. So, when life and circumstances endeavours to intersect the two orbits of two lives together, the chance for mutual feelings to align and for there to be true connection is so slim - but when it does happen, it's a rare and precious moment to be treasured.

Eve has no idea what Villanelle is thinking or feeling right now, but she hopes Villanelle understands what she is trying to convey.

Villanelle chomps on Eve's hand gleefully.

Eve yelps, but does not flinch. Instead, she brings her other hand to Villanelle's other cheek and knocks their foreheads together with a bruising crack. "Hey."

Villanelle finally replies with a quiet, "Hey." 

They remain like that, letting the moment last.

Villanelle is the one to end it. “Want some cake?” She brings her fork to Eve’s face. 

Eve takes the offered bite, and steps back. 

"Does your kid enjoy the gifts I send?" Villanelle suddenly asks. 

"Who on earth gives a child a throwing knife set?" Eve says crossly. "Or ingredients to build a bomb?"

"I want to be a cool aunt!"

"You really don't have to," Eve says faintly. "In fact I'd really rather you not."

"I want to help! It must be so hard to be a single mother at your age." Villanelle's voice drips with sympathy, "And it looks like your kid needs a lot of help, really."

Eve wonders how she has managed to stop herself from murdering the other woman until now. "Are you still friends with Amber Peel?"

Villanelle half-shrugs. "I don't need access to any databases for information on you."

"Not why I'm asking," Eve mutters.

"Oh, I know," Villanelle grins. She doesn't say anymore, which pisses Eve off for reasons she’d thought she’d left behind. 

"Okay, we’re leaving," Eve announces. Time to go before things go downhill.

Villanelle is already toggling the radio stations when Eve starts the car. It's going to be a long ride back.

She'll let Villanelle blast the radio and sing along at the top of her lungs all the way back to civilisation. Eve will even join in, in a broken messy duet, halfway through. It will be years before they meet face to face again, and who knows when it will be - if it will be a cordial meeting, or if they will be trying to kill each other - or maybe they won’t be in each other’s lives at all anymore. 

That's for the future. 

Today, it's just them, in a car, with cake, driving along an English country road, and it is good.

**Author's Note:**

> Eve isn't dead, damnit, and they WILL make up, damnit


End file.
